


Surface Tension

by katelusive



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 19:50:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2037846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katelusive/pseuds/katelusive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He doesn’t want to think about what else happened that night.  Not now, when Hannibal is so close and smelling of seawater and coriander."</p>
<p>One-shot AU set post 2x13.  It's hard to live happily ever after with the shadow of dark memories always threatening to spill over.  But Will is a fast learner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surface Tension

Will climbs up onto the deck a little after sunset, wiping his hands off on his shirt.  He’d changed clothes but forgotten to wash his hands.  Hannibal will probably say something, but the sound of little waves lapping against the side of the boat make it hard to care.  

The sun sets much later out here, often not slipping below the horizon until nine or ten.  Will likes it that way.  He’d always felt that night fell too quickly back in Virginia.  

Hannibal is right where they’d left him — barefoot and boneless on the lounge chair, tawny ankles crossed and his nose in a book.  He looks up.  The sunset glints burnt-gold in his eyes and Will can’t tell if he’s amused or not.  It shouldn’t matter as much anymore, but it does.  

“Good evening, Will.”  He puts a finger between the pages of his book and curls it across his chest.  “You look like you’ve had quite the battle.  And where is our teacup?”  

“Asleep,” says Will.  

“Did she catch anything?” 

“Not quite, but I did,” says Will, showing Hannibal the bite mark on his forearm.  

“How rude,” says Hannibal with a hint of a smile, eyeing the torn flesh. The bruise blooms outward over Will’s suntanned skin like a dark, bloody flower.

“I’m surprised you didn’t hear it.  Damn marlin almost took the whole boat down.  Abigail screamed so loud when it bit me, I thought we were gonna have a police chopper on our tail.”  

“I was asleep,” Hannibal says.  

I don’t believe you, Will wants to say.  Hannibal doesn’t sleep.  He floats shark-like with one eye open, always ready to bite.  “It’s downstairs if you’re hungry.”   

“I am,” says Hannibal, setting his book down.  He stretches slow and lazy, like a lion.  Will forces himself to stop staring at the line where Hannibal’s thin white sweater ends and golden skin begins.  He’s becoming an expert at looking away from the things he wishes he didn’t have to see.  It works with Hannibal, but not Abigail.  

 

Hannibal has expressed his displeasure with the “cramped” kitchen several times, but it’s still bigger than the kitchen at Will’s old house.  Will watches from a bolted-down stool as Hannibal chops baby carrots, fingerling potatoes, lemon, fresh oregano.  

“We will have to dock soon,” says Hannibal, examining a potato with faint distaste.  “These are not lasting as long as I thought.”

“Abigail can shop for us,” says Will.  

“We will need more than vegetables,” says Hannibal mildly.  He takes a delicate whiff of his wine.  “Do you recognize this vintage?”  

Will takes a little sip.  “Am I supposed to?”  No matter where they are, Hannibal can make him feel this way with a single sentence.  Outmanned, out-leagued, and a little dizzy.  Pull it together, Graham.

“I can’t speak for your memories,” says Hannibal.  “But we drank it together once.”

Will takes another swallow, swirling it over his tongue.  Of course he remembers.  The rich red of Hannibal’s study, crushed velvet beneath his fingertips.  The green-black glint in Hannibal’s eyes as he watched Will, like the deepest part of the jungle.  Trying and failing to hold the glass steady.  There was no in point hiding it.  Hannibal knew.

“The night we were unorthodox.”  

“Nothing unorthodox about it.  It’s perfectly professional to have a glass of wine with an evening patient.”  

“You’ve always remained the pinnacle of professionalism,” Will agrees.  He doesn’t want to think about what else happened that night.  Not now, when Hannibal is so close and smelling of seawater and coriander.  

“I should hope so,” says Hannibal.  “Now where is this impolite marlin of yours?”  

Will lugs the fish out of the cooler and heaves it onto the counter.  “Say hello to my sea monster.”  

“How valiant of you to slay the beast for your family,” says Hannibal.  Will rubs the bite on his arm.  His eyes catch on Hannibal’s for a bare second.  Hannibal’s nostrils flare slightly, elegantly, and Will imagines he can smell his blood.  

It’s moments like these that he knows there was never a power struggle to begin with, only his personal struggle to hide from himself.  But it’s too late for that — he can pretend it away in the sunlight, but alone with his thoughts after midnight is another story.  Here, sun-dazed and hazy-minded in Hannibal’s shadow with his nose full of pepper, salty skin and dead fish — it all just seems like a dream.

Hannibal’s eyes rest on Will’s arm for just another moment before he picks up the knife and begins to remove the marlin’s skin.  

“I don’t think I could’ve killed it without Abigail,” says Will.  “She hit it over the head with her shoe.  It wanted to take a much bigger chunk out of me.”  

“Who wouldn’t?” Hannibal murmurs, eyes on his work.  

Will swallows, dry-mouthed.  He takes another sip of wine.  Rich and subtly dangerous, like a filet cooked very rare.

“These fish are endangered, you know,” says Hannibal informatively, chopping the skinned marlin into several pieces.  He puts the head and tail back into the cooler and slices off the brilliant blue fin in one smooth motion.  “You could go to prison for this.”  

“I’m a bad man,” Will agrees.  “In my defense, he obviously wanted to kill me.” 

Hannibal looks up at him with a distracting half-smile.  Will’s heart leaps embarrassingly into his throat.  He doesn’t want to remember anything right now, but he does.  And to be honest, it’s a lot better than pulling some of the other skeletons out of the closet he won’t open.  Will pushes away Abigail’s terrified eyes and gaping mouth like a black hole.  No reason to think of that now.  The wine reminds him only of Hannibal.  

That night, Hannibal hadn’t smiled at all.  He’d been serious, almost business-like as he’d tilted Will’s head back and brushed his lips against the stubble beneath his chin.  Will had wondered if Hannibal was going to tear his throat out like a feral dog.  But instead, Hannibal had said, “I am going to buy you a new shaving lotion, Will.  This is truly offensive.”  

Later, alone in the dark, Will stared at the ceiling and replicated the maddening shadow of a soft red mouth on his neck.  Again, and again, and again until he couldn’t remember where memory ended and fantasy began.  

“This will take awhile to cook,” says Hannibal.  “Shall we go up onto the deck?”  

“No,” says Will, “not — not yet.”  

Always alert, Hannibal cocks his head to the left.  Despite the casual sweater and bare, tanned feet, Will sees the ghost of a tailored suit, slicked-back blond hair.  Eyes unreadable but always manipulative.  “What’s the matter, Will?  You are troubled.”  

Will forces a chuckle.  “It’s nothing.”

Hannibal waits, silent, expressionless.  Will furrows his brow.

“Okay.  Fine.  I’m troubled.  It’s just — I’ve been thinking a lot.  I — well, do you think — is she happy with us?  Can she be?”  

Hannibal ponders the question as he watches Will fiddle with an unused wooden spoon.  The smell of roasting lemon butter wafts up gently around him.  “Is she happy with us?  Or are you wondering if she is happy with you?”

“Yes,” Will admits.  “She was afraid of me.  Sometimes I worry that she still is.  Secretly, somewhere deep down where she hides everything she doesn’t want to look at.  There I am, being a murderous lunatic.”  

“She was afraid of me too, Will,” Hannibal reminds him.  “But we are all she has.”  

“I would take it back if I could,” says Will.  It’s a lie.  He wouldn’t, and he can’t.  

“She loves you, Will,” says Hannibal.  He touches Will tenderly at the collarbone, then straightens the collar of Will’s light plaid shirt.  Will’s ears buzz with everything that hasn’t been said.  

“She loves you too,” he replies.  Hannibal gives him a half smile and steps closer.  Will can smell the aftershave he uses — dark, expensive, ancient and unnameable.  The Tree of Life bleeding sap with a cosmic axe lodged deep in its trunk.  

“Abigail forgives you, Will,” says Hannibal.  “And that is what we need to do as well.”  

“Forgive whom?”

“Forgive ourselves for what we have done to her.”

He stares at Will with his deep-sea eyes, a black stag-devil with amusement in his gaze.  And Will can see more of him than ever before — wilted roses, pearls hanging from a boar’s mouth, the gentle touch of strong, gory fingers on his neck.  A dab of blood smeared at the corner of Hannibal’s mouth.  He can feel Hannibal’s breath on his lips.  

“Are you going to kiss me?” Will wants to ask, but instead he kisses Hannibal.  Just for an instant — the most secret, most invisible moment — their lips press together, bodies still with a thrill of tension between them, Will’s hand hovering at Hannibal’s elbow.  No touching but for the wet heat of Hannibal’s mouth on his.  A black flower unfurls in Will’s stomach, blood and smoke, pulsing with desire.

_So that’s it_ , thinks Will.  _This is what it’s like to die._   

Hannibal breaks it.  “Let’s see how our rude Mssr. Marlin is faring,” he says, opening the oven to take a look.  

“Smells delicious,” says Will.  His heart beats like a hammer against his ribcage.  

“Will it be worth the blood loss?”  

“Your cooking always is,” says Will.  Hannibal smiles at him once more, a full smile, bright and infinite as a meteor shower.  It hits Will hard in the chest, in the palms of his hands.  He smiles back.  

 

***

TBC?  This was supposed to be a one-shot but I'm really into the idea of Murder Husbands On A Boat.  


End file.
